Cute, cuddly and comical, baby animals are the most fun attraction of a wildlife trip. We count down the ten most lovable young-animal images made on our Photo Tours to make you go “aww”.
10. The Stub-nosed Pachyderm
As seen on our Kenya Photography Tour.
Now here’s a young elephant that isn’t quite as nosey as it’d like to be. But this insufficiency doesn’t ‘trunkate’ its enthusiasm. Not because the oversized ears compensate for the stub nose, but because an elephant calf is an animal that doesn’t tire of learning how to use its trunk to do various things its mother seems to do with perplexing ease and calm!
9. The Stealth Walker
As seen on our Bandhavgarh Photography Tour.
What do you do when you’re a little more than two months old, and your mother – a tiger – crosses the track ahead of you, leaving you to negotiate a perilous pedestrian crossing all alone, with vehicles parked in the grandstand watching your every move? Why, you activate intense-concentration mode, crouch as low as possible, so low that your belly almost scrapes the ground, and then make a dash for it. And that’s how you get away unmowed, while moving a whole lot of watchers towards joie de vivre from watching your own film entitled Creeping Tiger, Hidden Wagon.
8. The Tower under Construction
As seen on our Kenya Photography Tour.
When the first thing you do in life is take a several-foot tumble from your giraffe-mother’s womb to terra firma, you know a firm thing or two about survival. And so you can afford to look cool with a pair of tufted ossicles, four stilts for legs, and just to add a touch of irony, a grassblade to feign a tenacious umbilical cord. Even if you have a face more triangular than Fido’s. After all, whether you know it or not, you’re about to go on to become a tower of grace and gentle beauty.
7. The White Walkers
As seen on our Svalbard Photography Tour.
Out on a walk in the frozen domain of the Norwegian Arctic – a pair of complacent-looking polar bear cubs with their mother doubling up as guide and guardian. And why wouldn’t you be complacent, if you were one of them! With such a formidable creature – the planet’s largest land carnivore – protecting you, you have nothing to fear; not even if the real (fictional) white walkers came alive and after you when you’re out of your supply of Nordic dragonglass, for you will together kill them with cuteness!
6. The Treed and Tested Customer
As seen on our Kenya Photography Tour.
Big cat babies are some of the most helpless creatures on Earth. They lack any sort of strength or stamina, can’t find food by themselves, and are vulnerable to being killed by a variety of co-predators, scavengers, and even herbivores (like buffalo). So what does a leopard cub do, when left alone on a tree by its mother? Remain on tenterhooks and watch its surroundings from its vantage view while fervently awaiting her return.
5. The ‘Cheet’ Code User
As seen on our Kenya Photography Tour.
When your siblings are chasing you round and round a tree on the plains of the Mara, what’s an easy way of giving them the miss? Clamber up the tree, of course, with your limp tail, daytime running claws, grizzled nape-hair and all! That way, you gain the (ad)vantage, while rising up the pecking order. And nobody dare call you out for cheating, because they’re all cheetahs too!
4. The Foul Foal
As seen on our Kenya Photography Tour.
Back off with your standards, for in the animal kingdom, it’s no foul to be dirty, unless you’re a big cat or a hygiene hypochondriac like that. Especially if you’re a zebra foal, rolling in the mud and getting yourself all brown and chocolatey helps you stand out of the crowd constituted by hypnotic but also monotonous black-and-white masses. And what with the added benefit of the mudpack keeping the pests at bay, these smart equids seem to know, rather than having to be told, that stains are good.
3. The Little Devil
As seen on our Kenya Photography Tour.
Spotted hyaenas are used to being derided for their oddball proportions, cruiser-bike stance, a predilection for purloining food, and being neither true felines nor canines. But see a pup out of its den, with its devil-horn ears and in the standard dark-horse black edition, and their cuddliness suddenly skyrockets. And through their devastatingly strong jaws, they have the last laugh in their trademark guffaw of fearsome persistence.
2. The Inflatable Fur-Bundle
As seen on our Kenya Photography Tour.
Seen at idle on a sequestered rock was this roll-resistant fur-bundle. Features included four limbs for locomotion shod with soft paws, lazy eyes, temporary spots, and an orifice to input inflating material. We like the black-accented nose, an extra freebie. And if your mood needs inflation, a single sight of it has a lasting effect as desired.
1. The Munificent Monkey
As seen on our Anaimalai Photo Tour.
The winner of the cuteness contest is this lion-tailed macaque, which seems to be offering a part of its fruit while the mother looks away. In doing so, it seems to be showing us how to share, and how not to be petty, no matter how little we have. And that monkey business isn’t so bad after all then, if it can be munificent!
Beautufullll.:)